Recently, both of them have argued that the T.P.P. isn’t primarily a trade agreement at all, in the traditional sense of deals that aim to eliminate tariffs, cut prices for consumers, and allocate productive resources according to the law of comparative advantage, which David Ricardo promulgated in the early nineteenth century. Rather, the T.P.P. is largely a business-driven effort to extend more international protection to the investments, patents, and copyrights of major U.S. corporations.
“Why do some parties want this deal so much?” Krugman asked on his Times blog, in March. “Because as with many ‘trade’ deals in recent years, the intellectual property aspects are more important than the trade aspects.”
.. Another conspicuous absentee was Columbia’s Joseph Stiglitz, who served in the Clinton Administration, and who has emerged as a prominent critic of the T.P.P. Evidently, Summers, Stiglitz, and Krugman—perhaps the three most famous economists in the country—all agree with Hillary Clinton, who said over the weekend that President Obama should listen to the Congressional Democrats
.. In short, the Democratic Party’s intellectual consensus on free trade has been shattered, and it’s pretty clear why. The fact that, as Summers noted, tariffs have already come down is part of the story. Another factor is the general hostility toward the pharmaceutical industry and other corporate rent collectors, and toward the secrecy that pervades trade negotiations. But the bigger story is that, so far, free trade and globalization have failed to deliver the material benefits to ordinary Americans, and particularly to American workers, that were advertised. Over time, Democratic politicians and economists have been forced to acknowledge this fact.
..A 2013 study by David H. Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon H. Hanson found that rising Chinese imports accounted for about a quarter of the decline in U.S. manufacturing jobs between 1990 and 2007.
Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership Is Nearly Dead
But when I ask my students why they refused to accept anything less than $250 and thereby risked getting nothing at all, they say it’s worth the price of avoiding unfairness.
.. The American economy looks increasingly arbitrary, as CEOs of big firms now rake in 300 times more than the wages of average workers, while two-thirds of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
The Democratic Tea Party
Imperil world peace. The Pacific region will either be organized by American rules or Chinese rules. By voting against the trade deal, Democrats went a long way toward guaranteeing that Chinese rules will dominate.
As various people have noted, the Democratic vote last week was a miniversion of the effort to destroy the League of Nations after World War I. It damaged an institution that might head off future conflict.
Why Does Obama Want This Trade Deal So Badly?
What exactly the T.P.P. will do, however, is difficult to know, because its terms are being negotiated in secret. Only “cleared advisors,” most of them representing various private industries, are permitted to work on the text.
.. A Swedish power company is currently suing Germany, seeking $4.6 billion in damages, because of steps Germany is taking to phase out nuclear power, and Philip Morris is suing to prevent Uruguay and Australia from implementing policies to reduce smoking.
.. Even a “sweetener” in the form of assistance for workers who lose their jobs because of trade agreements turns out to be partly financed by a seven-hundred-million-dollar raid on Medicare.
.. Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader, is reported to be working closely with Boehner and Ryan to come up with the number they need—although she still hasn’t said which way she’ll vote herself. That’s how strange the legislative politics of the T.P.P. have become. Nearly every constituency in the Democratic Party opposes it; and the more they learn about it, the more they oppose it. And yet their leader, Obama, wants it badly.
.. What’s the rush? Is it simply Obama’s wish to make his mark on history and to complete his pivot toward Asia before his time is up?